A blog of the Missouri Department of Agriculture

September 06, 2013

Friday Fixin's - Hot Sauce

Here's a great recipe for a hot sauce from epicurious that we found on the Lincoln University Farmers' Market web site. It's a great way to use all those extra peppers that you purchased at your local Missouri farmers' market or have growing in your family or community garden. If you like spicy, this is the sauce for you, but you can easily change the type of peppers you use depending on your tolerance. Add this sauce to your favorite Buffalo wing recipe, pulled pork, Szechuan beef or on top of any dish you would normally splash on some extra hot sauce. It's sure to be a hit and you can tell your friends and family that you made it yourself.

Makes 1 quart or 2 pints

Ingredients:

4 cups fresh cayenne peppers (about one pound)

½ cup water

1 ½ teaspoons sea salt

2 cups cider vinegar

Directions:

1. Stem the peppers and pack them in a food processor with the water. Pulse until they form a chunky mass, with pieces about the size of a BB, and then add the salt. (You are going for about 2.5 percent salinity in your initial fermentation.)

2. Place the peppers in a large mason jar, cover it with a square of paper towel, and secure the towel with the jar's O-ring. Store the jar in a dark spot that hovers around 70°F (a kitchen cupboard is good) and let it do its thing for 48 hours.

3. Skim off any accumulated mold and stir the peppers. Cover again with the paper towel and O-ring, and repeat the skimming and stirring every day or so, for 5-10 days, or as long as the pepper mixture looks restless.

4. Once the peppers are fermented, place the contents of the jar, skimmed one last time, into a food processor and pulse a couple of times. Add the vinegar, blend well, and then strain the hot sauce through a fine mesh strainer before storing in clean bottles. It should stay good in a sealed container in the fridge for up to a year!

If you want to stabilize the texture you can add some Ultratex 3, a modified tapioca starch avialable at vaious online locations. For this application you need about 1/2 teaspoon.